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Lease Renewal

Hi
I have a leasehold flat that I am in the process of selling for £115,000. The lease will have 68 years remaining on the 28th of march this year and the landload wants £12,000 to renew it. I was more than a bit shocked to discover this and feel that it is far too much money. I have a few questions if anyone can help:
1/ Is this a normal amount to renew a lease? If not what is a normal amount?

2/ Is there anything I can do to get a lower price? At the moment I am tempted to keep hold of the flat for the next 68years and rent it out. The Lanlord only bought the Freehold in Dec 2005 and is obviously looking for a quick return.

3/ The alternative I gues is to purchase the freehold with the other leasehodlers. Who sets the price for this? Would it be the landlord again?

I feel very trapped here as i can not sell the flat unless somebody is willing to take on the lease and nobody will with a cost of £12,000 to renew it. If I pay the £12,000 it wil not considerably increase the value fo the flat.

Re: Lease Renewal

Hi you have a message on this page from someone who has been pffered a renewal on her lease for 12 thousand pounds. my question is exactly the same as hers, but I cannot find out how to log on to the answer. help. And Hi everyone!! My flat is worth about 150,000 and the lease has 63 years to run. However no maintainance has been done to the flats for at least 8 years so the lintels have all cracked over the windows of the 15 flats and all the balconies are falling off so we have about 10,000 pounds worth of work due on each flat does this affect the price

Re: Lease Renewal

Properties with leases under 70 years have in recent years become increasingly difficult to mortgage, and thus problematical to sell.

The calculations used to arrive at the value necessary to extend a lease is very complicated, but published. Further information is available on the government lease-advice site. It's called a marriage value.

I think I am right in saying that the increase in property values over recent years has had an effect on the marriage value. It therefore follows that if property values decline (as I am confident they will for the next couple of years) then this may well reduce the marriage value.

I would suggest that increasing the term to 99 years is worth consideration. Increasing to 125 years is probably not worthwhile, as the value of the property if on the market will be unlikely to reflect the extra premium paid.

On some things I am very knowledgeable, on other things I am stupid. Trouble is, sometimes I discover that the former is the latter or vice versa, and I don't know this until later - maybe even much later. Read anything I write with the above in mind.